


Valse Triste

by sunseepsthrough



Category: Pocket Mirror (Video Game)
Genre: Dancing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Loneliness, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24823498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunseepsthrough/pseuds/sunseepsthrough
Summary: Goldia comes home. (Post-Dawn ending.)
Relationships: Slight Goldia/Lisette
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Valse Triste

Goldia comes home on an icy afternoon in winter, just as the sunlight is growing thin and the colour is draining from the sky. She carries with her a small brown valise that contains all she has in the world - well, and she supposes she has the house and its contents. That's more than most people. Nothing to complain about.

It just doesn't feel real that it's hers yet. It's hard to separate it from the dream that felt so real, and join up all the pieces of her fragmented childhood. She wasn't herself for so much of it, and now none of it seems to really belong to her.

"Well, Miss, how does it feel to be home?" the nurse asks.

_When I get there, I'll tell you,_ Goldia thinks, and feels something rise in her throat. A laugh, a sob, or just an ache.

The garden looks bleak as they walk up the avenue. Wet bare trees; wet black leaves; wet grey paths. Everything's been swept and cut back in preparation for her arrival, but that makes it look like the shaved head of a lunatic. The light is so cold and blue.

The house is little better. People have been inside to dust, nothing more. The door lets out a great hollow groan when she opens it, and the hall is more like a cave, dark and chill. She thinks again of Harpae, moving like a ghost through lightless rooms, hiding in a few small spaces she carved out for herself. Goldia will have to be like that again for a while.

"There are some candles," the nurse says, pointing to a table pushed back against one wall. It's the only piece of furniture not covered by a dust sheet. "And matches, look. I expect it will all look much more cheerful with some light, and a good fire going."

She says it comfortably, and Goldia only remembers then that the nurse will be leaving. That's why the cab is still waiting outside, to take her away. And the two servants Goldia has arranged for won't be here until tomorrow morning. And no one is going to ask her whether she'll be all right alone tonight.

"Do you know how to light a fire?" the nurse says. Goldia looks at her, and sees the flicker of dislike, quickly masked beneath deference. She sees herself: a rich little madam who had nothing better to do than sleep for years, and now expects to be waited on. Spoiled and feeling sorry for herself, acting the poor orphan amidst unimaginable plenty.

It's nothing. This woman's dislike should be nothing. If she has some good fortune now, it was her name that bought it, all those years ago in the forest, when Elise traded her away.

So it should be nothing. But she turns away to hide the tears in her eyes. At least her hands don't shake when she picks up a match and strikes it.

"Thank you," she murmurs. A soft voice hides unsteadiness. "I can manage. Thank you for..."

There's no point finishing the sentence. The nurse is already turning away, fussing with her gloves, which she didn't even take off when she came inside.

"Goodnight, Miss."

"Goodbye," Goldia says, and the great front door groans as if the house has a broken heart.

Alone, she walks with her candle through half-remembered passageways. All the carpets were rolled up and stored away when the house was shut up, so her heels make a lonely _tap, tap, tap_ as she goes. She closes her eyes and counts her steps, one hand trailing along the wall. Harpae, who has it all memorized, walks a little ahead of her. Ever the fearless maiden.

She doesn't mean to end up in the ballroom. Maybe it's the centre of the house, the stage on which Elise paraded the spectacle of her life. The room is empty now. The floor, once polished, is dusty. She remembers (Fleta) skidding across that floor in her dancing-slippers, and getting a scolding for it.

The only thing left is - of course - a mirror. Too heavy to move, she supposes, or too valuable. That hardly matters now. Sometime in the years she slept away, it got a crack like a bolt of forked lightning right down the middle. She looks at her own face in the light of the single candle. It's not the face she remembers; it's older, thinner, more solemn. She really could be a ghost haunting this place.

_What are you going to do now?_ Fleta asks in the back of her head. _Sit and cry some more?_

She smiles at that, faintly. "It's a ballroom," she says aloud. "I'm going to dance, of course."

The candle holders on the wall are all empty, and the chandelier is much too high to reach, so she puts the candles she lights in candlesticks and stands them on the windowsills. Outside the sky is the blue of a deep, cold sea, and the windows are like dark mirrors as she steps out into the centre of the floor and tries to summon up half-remembered dancing lessons from her childhood.

Fortunately, Harpae is still nearby, and Harpae never forgets anything. She is there when Goldia closes her eyes, taking her hands and guiding her with confident grace. She whispers, " _Step_ , two, three, _step_ , two, three," until Goldia can almost hear the waltz, drifting as if from some forgotten wing of the house. She remembers her mother, practicing when she thought no one would see; in spite of all her ambition, Elise never was quite sure of herself among all the haughty people she wanted so much to impress.

When she opens her eyes again, she sees her reflection dancing across the black windows, alone. She thinks again of a ghost, haunting an abandoned house. Then at the corner of her eye there's a flourish of pink, and Fleta comes rushing out, impatient.

"Stop being miserable and spin me around," she orders, and Goldia takes her hands. They whirl across the floor, laughing, around and around, until Goldia is thoroughly dizzy and her melancholy thoughts are still somewhere behind her, trying to catch up.

Her reflection is touched with the dark of shadows and the gold of candlelight. Enjel watches, jealous, uncertain. Goldia reaches out for her, too.

"It's easy," she says. "Come on, I'll show you. It's fun!"

After Fleta's spinning-top flight around the room, it takes some thought to fall back into Harpae's orderly rhythm, but Harpae is still there, waiting to help. They're two, they're three, they're one. All of them together. Finally Enjel steps away, looking suspicious.

"That's fun?"

"It is," Goldia insists. "You're just not used to it."

Her eyes seek the shadows at the corners of the room. In one there's a figure, a spill of pale golden hair like the light of the harvest moon. Goldia steps forward hesitantly and holds out her hand, wondering if Lisette will reject her.

"Would you like to dance too?"

She's aware suddenly that the dark room, with its mirror-like windows and inadequate candles, is something like the maze Lisette built to hide her true self. The dilapidated house, the mockery of civilized life, that's a little like Lisette's dark tea parties. It brings back bad memories just thinking about it. Why should she want to dance?

But then Lisette inches forward, into the uncertain light. Her eyes are like wood-violets at dusk. Her fingers curl tentatively around Goldia's.

It's not imagination, not some dream, though the nurse might disagree. Goldia can _see_ them in the mirrors, can feel their touch, hear their voices with her ears. She can tell the difference between them and the music that's only in her mind. They're with her. She's not alone, after all.

She puts her arm shyly around Lisette's waist, and wonders how she could ever have hurt her. Harpae is a knight, full of pride and faith, and Fleta has a princess's hauteur for armour, but Lisette is spun from shadows and cobwebs and paper. She's fragile in a way none of the others were, sharp edges and all. And Goldia broke her again and again.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and feels Lisette's startled breath against her cheek. Now they've forgotten all their dancing steps again; they move as if they're learning for the first time. "I love you," she says, and Lisette's hand tightens convulsively around hers.

"You didn't make me for this," she says. She has such a pretty voice when she's not screaming; she speaks low and fast as if she's afraid of what she'll say, and wants to hide it, but her voice is lovely. "Don't keep apologizing. That's not what I want."

She doesn't say what she does want, so they dance in silence, shuffling steps becoming more confident. Goldia holds Lisette close, until she sees the moon rising outside the window, and realizes she's no longer afraid. Then she lets her go.

She's standing alone in a vast and empty hall, encircled by candles like shards of fallen stars. She can see herself smiling, her hair in disarray. An outsider would think something was wrong with her, but she feels clearer and happier than she can remember being in her life.

"I don't know how to light a fire," she confesses to the darkness, picking up her candle and blowing out the others. "But if you're with me, we can work it out together."


End file.
